290 



time of their fixing themselves in, or attaching themselves to, this 

 substance, had been effected from a substance, in a state of igneous 

 fusion. Their splendour, and their iridiscent surface, appear also to 

 be at least, as Easily accounted for by the agency of water, as by 

 that of fire. Mrs. Fulhame has detailed some very pleasing, and in- 

 genious, experiments, which bear very strong evidence in favour of 

 this opinion of their aqueous origin. This lady impregnated pieces 

 of silk with solutions of various metals, and exposed them, wetted 

 with water, to the action of hydrogen, sulphuretted hydrogen, Sec. 

 inconsequence of which they became covered by films of reduced 

 metal; which sometimes, like the native sulphurets, displayed a 

 variety of most lively colours. Even those metals, which were 

 not capable of being precipitated, by the addition of sulphuretted 

 hydrogen to their solutions, obtained, in this manner, their metallic 

 splendour*. 



By these experiments, we are undoubtedly taught, that hydro- 

 gen, as well as sulphuretted hydrogen, is capable of reducing the 

 metals, even in the ordinary temperature of the atmosphere ; that 

 water promotes these reductions in a very remarkable manner ; and 

 that these reductions of the metals are accompanied by a variety of 

 colours, resembling those which frequently mark the surfaces of the 

 splendid natural sulphurets, or pyrites. 



A series of experiments, ascertaining the effects of hydrogen and 

 sulphuretted hydrogen on various solutions of the different metals, 

 aided by the deoxydating powers of carbon, alkalies, and earths, 

 would, it seems reasonable to expect, manifest, in the hands of the 

 able chemist, that the formation of the brilliant, crystallized, me- 

 tallic pyrites, has depended on aqueous solution. But the vast mass 

 of materials, the great quantity, as well as the density of the super- 

 incumbent strata, which must necessarily prevent any escape of the 



* An Essay on Combustion, p. 36. 



